Safe Streets Academy

The Orlando metropolitan region has long had notoriously dangerous roadways, especially for people walking. A team from the City of Orlando dedicated to improving safety launched a demonstration project on Curry Ford Road, a commercial arterial with a history of crashes involving people walking and biking that spans both the city’s and county’s jurisdictions. By collaborating with Orange County staff and with local elected officials, the team transformed this five-lane speedway into a three-lane Complete Street with protected cycle tracks and a mid-block crossing with a painted pedestrian refuge. Although local business owners and nearby residents supported the demonstration project, people who commute through the neighborhood were resistant to the changes, which raised important questions about the necessary trade-offs between safety and speed when designing safer streets for people.

Through our Safe Streets Academy, teams from Orlando, FL, Lexington, KY, and South Bend, IN launched demonstration projects to transform their streets into safer places for people walking, biking, and driving. How did they do it? On June 12, we’re releasing case studies that tell their stories — stories that can help others around the country learn how to create safer streets in their own communities. Join us for a webinar on June 12 from 2:30-3:30PM ET to celebrate these projects and learn more about the cities’ experiences!

Through the Safe Streets Academy, three cities are build skills in safer street design, tactical urbanism, and community engagement. After our second workshop, the teams from Lexington, KY; South Bend, IN; and Orlando, FL applied these skills to launch on-the-ground demonstration projects testing techniques to slow down drivers and make their streets safer places for people.

This November, participants from Lexington KY, South Bend IN, and Orlando FL convened in Orlando for the inaugural workshop of the Safe Streets Academy. We spent two days laying the foundation for the Academy and conducting case studies and exercises on innovative strategies to improve safety through engineering countermeasures.

As the first-ever Safe Streets Academy prepares for launch next month, the quality and number of applications that were submitted offered a deeply informative look into the challenges to Complete Streets implementation that jurisdictions across the country currently face. The National Complete Streets Coalition decided to put that information to use by creating an infographic that summarizes some of the most pressing challenges.

Scores of cities are eager to build safer streets for all of their residents, but many also quickly discover the plethora of barriers that make it difficult to change years of practice. Our new Safe Streets Academy, announced today, is bringing together three jurisdictions in a collaborative environment to explore how to overcome those barriers and develop strategies for improving safety for all users of the street.

The National Complete Streets Coalition is now accepting applications for our brand new Safe Streets Academy, a program designed to help jurisdictions transform their commitment to traffic safety into practice.

The National Complete Streets Coalition is excited to announce our brand new Safe Streets Academy, a free technical assistance program that will provide education and training on to redesign and engineer roads to reduce traffic speeds and save lives.